The Path Through the Archway

The blue door of the school's open. I'm alone. I'm not moving, but waiting. I don't know why I'm waiting but I know why I'm alone.

I'm outside the crumbling arch of the wide door with the complicated markings and it feels like this is the first time, but it might not be.

It's not a school day. I'm in my uniform. My cap feels too small.

I step in and push the door gently: it moves an inch or two then comes back but it doesn't creak because it's used all the time. It stays there, waiting.

The voice in my head says "You have to wait as well."

Behind me, I can hear the noise from the main road and to my side I can hear a cow swishing its tail in the next-door field behind the houses.

I touch the roughness of the brickwork around the arch: it feels like an old sticking-plaster on a cut made on a thumb a few days ago.

There's a smell like medicine, but it doesn't smell as if it’s there now. It smells as if it's coming in from the future.

Past the door, I can see the corridor with the coat-pegs on the right which are empty now and the two wash-basins at the end, which are not dirty, and the closed door into the room on the left.

I walk in past the open door again and touch the first peg. I feel a slight jolt of electricity and I pull my hand away and move back outside the doorway and wait. My eyes have now got small sparks of blue light in them that dance over everything I look at.

From behind the door to the room, a man's voice starts to make a tune. The voice is muffled and slurred over a bit, so I don’t recognise what the tune is, or even whether it really is a tune. The voice sounds like sandpaper making the air rough, not smooth.

The room door opens, and a man comes out and locks the door behind him and I don't know him and he walks through the open doorway, wearing a teacher’s gown and smelling of the same thing that my dad used to smell of on a Friday night, so that's definitely a past smell. His hair's not properly combed and it's brown but turning to grey so it looks a bit green and his eyes keep opening and closing slowly. He walks past me and he brushes my face with his cloak without seeing me and he turns to the left, and he carries on singing, and he walks up the slope towards the boys' toilet block and walks quickly like he’s very determined, but he walks from side to side quite a bit as well for some reason, with the gown blowing out like a kite, so I can follow him easily.

He goes past the open side of the block with the trough in it and he goes into one of the cubicles. He's still singing. I still don’t know what it is he’s singing.

I walk up to the trough and stand there. I need to pee, but his singing is putting me off. The place still smells of other boys' pee and also distant pooh and disinfectant, but this is a now smell. I touch the black stain on the black wall above the trough. It feels like somebody has roughed it up lots of times and painted over it lots of times to make it smoother but not smooth altogether.The man stops singing and now I can hear him sobbing. The man starts singing again, but now every bit of the music has a sob where the bar line ought to be when the music is written down on the page like we were taught to do by the French lady before the time she didn't come in once and never came back again.

I still don’t recognise any words and I still don’t recognise the tune, but I recognise the sound the sobs make and that’s a past sound and it sounds like the sobs on a Friday night only they're what the French lady said was called "lower in pitch."

Because the cubicle's door is closed, it’s like he's made his own country, where he's allowed to cry, even though he's a man.

The song sounds like it never needs to stop.

I can’t wait any longer. I start to pee into the trough.

The voice in my head says "It won't get better."

I hear the cubicle door opening. He's still singing. He's still sobbing.

***

I was outside the doorway again, and it was the same ornate door in the same crumbling arch, but this time it was closed and this time there was a sign that said "Old School House Doctors’ Surgery" and again there was a smell of medicine, but this time it smelt of the present.

I heard a vehicle door slam behind me. I looked down to the car park that used to be the playground. People were getting out of a car: a man, a young girl and an old lady.

I pushed the door gently: it opened easily and did not creak.And the voice inside me drifting in like smoke, but not talking yet - just making its presence felt, wrapping itself around all my tiny bones.

The spring of the door caused it to close behind me, and I moved half way up the corridor past a right hand wall plastered with posters, offering a variety of medical advice. In front of me, there was now a modern-looking door marked "Private" and to my left there was another door, the old door, through which I could hear a woman's voice humming a tune. I could make out the structure of the tune, even though it was faint through the thickness of the door, but I didn't recognise it. I touched the door handle, and felt a slight spark but left my hand there and let the electricity drift through my body down to my feet. I was used to it by then. Nothing special. Nothing different. Nothing hurt anymore.

I opened the door. On the counter, there was a bell, and a box labelled "Repeat Prescriptions." The woman that I had heard was seated behind the counter. She stopped humming and looked up. I caught my reflection in her glasses, unimpeded by her eyes, which seemed more like round shadows than things you would look out of. My own eyes looked tired and bloodshot. My hair was unkempt, as usual. The green tint of her spectacles didn't help.

The woman said "Good Morning. May I help you?"

"Yes. I have an appointment with Dr. Allison, at ten thirty. The name's Goodrich, Leonard Goodrich."

"Ah yes." Her eyes seemed to spark for a second, and then darken again. "Please take a seat in there to your left, Mr. Goodrich. Dr. Allison is currently on time." She stated this as if it were unusual.

"Thank you." I walked through the open entrance into the empty waiting room and as I did, I choked on a smell of piss and distant shit and disinfectant, but it disappeared into the past as soon as I walked past the door jamb. I took a seat, but started coughing immediately. I pulled out a piece of tissue and hawked into it, and there was a black stain on the white paper background. It looked rough and three dimensional and was wider at the bottom than the top, so it had the shape of a black gown, billowing in the breeze, a black gown without a body.

And the voice breaking in and speaking this time, and saying "You, Leonard - taking me where and when you wanted me. Leaving me. But now things are getting equalised, Leonard. Now I'm with you all the time."

There was only one other door off my waiting room. On it, there was a sign that said "Doctor Frederick Allison." Behind the door, I could hear the faint sound of sobbing. The receptionist started humming her tune again, but stopped almost immediately as the door from the corridor opened and the man, the old lady and the young girl entered. The man mumbled something, and the receptionist made a note and gestured them into the other waiting room. The young girl reached up and touched the bell and seemed to get a slight shock from it. She giggled, and ran ahead of the man, who was supporting the old lady as they moved slowly through the other open doorway.

I suddenly felt the need to piss but decided it was too late. I could still hear the sobbing. The receptionist resumed her rendition of a tune of perfect unrecognisable clarity.

I crossed my legs and hoped.

And the voice twisting in again. "Yours, Leonard, yours and yours only. Of a kind, you and I. Mingling and twining together like twins fighting in the womb."

I yelled "Shut up!" I looked around: nobody appeared to have heard me. The receptionist had paused in mid-beat, but only momentarily, and she had quickly resumed the obscurity of her song. But I could still hear the echo of my own voice and the echo seemed to have its own echo, bouncing off the hard surfaces.

I coughed into the tissue again.

The doctor's door opened.

***

I carry on peeing and I don't turn around, and I hear him shuffling, singing and sobbing behind me. I look over my right shoulder when he's almost past, and I can see he's not looking at me, but he's staggering slightly down the slope, and his back is hunched, and his gown is limp now and it's torn and bedraggled, as if he's caught it in the door or something. I've finished now, and I spit into the trough. My mouth tastes salty even though my spit didn't.

I button myself up. There's nowhere to wash my hands here, so I just stand and wait until I feel sure he's gone away and then I move back down the slope.

When I get to the doorway, I wait there again. I begin to forget why I'm here and why there's nobody else around. I brush my face against the smooth blue paint of the door, and close my eyes."You, boy! What are you doing here?"

It's him. He seems fierce now, tidy, with a new gown on, and he's much taller now he's not slouching. His eyes are wrinkled but dry. It's like he's walked through a wall and become a different person.

"Please, sir, I was told to come here today, when everybody else had gone to the outing, and wait to see somebody about – my problem."

He looks puzzled. I hand him the envelope. I remember I haven't washed my hands. I think about the germs my mum told me about.

***

A red-eyed young woman came out, looked down at the floor, then raised her gaze and stared at me defiantly before she turned and walked back out to the reception.

The doctor's door closed. I scratched at a scab on the back of my hand. I licked it. It tasted of nothing.

The doctor's door opened again. He stood there, impossibly tall, just as before.

"Leonard Goodrich", he declaimed to the four corners of the room, as if it were full of waiting patients. I uncrossed my legs and stood up. My bladder seemed to sort of slurp sideways and the pressure was momentarily relieved.He allowed me through past his elongated thinness and I sat down. There was a sort of plush roughness to the cushion of the chair and a Friday night memory smell seemed to be settling slowly from the ceiling like recently stirred-up dust.

He straightened up from his stoop and settled in his chair. Sat down, he was less obviously taller. He put his glasses on. He looked at his screen. He took his glasses off. He swivelled on his chair and looked directly at me. His hands trembled slightly. "Well, Mr. Goodrich, we have received the results. I am afraid that they do not change anything. The recent blood test results merely confirm the previous ones and, I regret to say, it would appear that, whilst some of the analgesic drugs have clearly had a real palliative effect, as far as treatment is concerned, we are merely arresting incursion."

And the voice wisping through me, seemingly deeper in pitch: "You may have come back here, Leonard, but you can't get back into the past."

"So where does that leave me, doctor? Back on the road to nowhere?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that, Mr. Goodrich, but I am afraid that there is no prospect of a complete recovery. The way forward is to ensure that you are comfortable for..." He paused.

"The rest of my days, doctor?"

"Well, Mr. Goodrich, I wouldn't have put it quite that way; there are advances in this field every day. However, I am afraid that that there is no cure on the horizon. Nevertheless, we have a number of measures that can be used to assist you."

"So do I, doctor; so do I."

"Mr. Goodrich, we discussed this during our other meeting. I do - honestly - realise that this is extremely difficult for you, but I'm afraid that alcohol - or any other narcotic depressants or stimulants - will not only make the symptoms worse, but also make the drugs less effective."

"And singing, doctor? What about that?"

"Singing, Mr. Goodrich?"

"I'm sorry, doctor: a private joke. With myself."

"Oh, I see. Well, singing certainly won't do any harm."

"Unless I perhaps sing the blues rather too vehemently, doctor."

"Possibly. However, if I correctly remember what you said on your other visit, singing the blues is supposed to have a cathartic effect, which may help. Not my specialist area, I'm afraid."

"Well, we shall have to see how this pans out. And whether it's worth it."

"Mr. Goodrich."

"Yes, doctor?"

"There is no doubt - and you, to your credit, have been the first to admit it - that self-infliction - on a number of fronts - has been the root cause of your ailments. Therefore, I feel that I should emphasise again that you have to accept that any continued indulgence will only exacerbate your symptoms."

"Yes, doctor. I do."

"Therefore, perhaps we would be better advised to work on that next time."

"Yes, doctor."

"How are you getting on with the nicotine patches?"

"Very well, thank you, doctor. I haven't had a cigarette since we spoke."

"Good. Well, I'd like to review that with you in about two weeks' time. Please make an appointment when you go out, and I'll see you then."

"Thank you, doctor. Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Mr. Goodrich. We'll see you soon."

And the voice slicing in again: "You know nobody here anymore, Leonard, and you're the next one to go."

***

He takes the envelope and sniffs it for some reason.

"Your problem, eh? What's that?"

I don't reply. I look at my feet.

"Well, I suppose you'd better come in. There's nobody else here, and I certainly haven't been told about anything, but I'm sure I can deal with the matter."

We walk through the classroom towards a smaller room. He holds the door open, and waves his arm for me to go in. Inside, there is a smell, and it is a now smell, so the smell is not quite like medicine, and not quite like Friday night, but smells a bit stale like dirty bodies and a bit sour like a horrible liquid you don't want to drink but you have to.

He walks quickly to his chair like somebody in the army and he sits down. He waves at me to close the door and sit down at the opposite side of his desk, so that's what I do.

I look at the cane hanging on the hook above his head. "Excuse me, sir. This is the headmaster's study, isn't it?"

"Yes. He allows me to borrow it on Saturdays."

"Are you a teacher, here, sir?"

"Yes, but I normally work at the Infant Annexe at the Old Manor House, so you won't have seen me before, probably. Well, let's find out about your problem, shall we?"

He opens the envelope. The other, smaller envelope - the one that's still sealed and that's addressed to the Teacher-in-Charge - falls out onto the desk.

He looks down to the bottom of the page and quickly reads the whole of the first letter and then he looks at the envelope.

"Where did you get this? There's no stamp on it."

"Please, sir, it was pushed through our letter box. Mrs. Fenwick must have dropped it off on her way home."

"I don't think so. I really don't think so. I regret to say that I think that you have been the victim of a rather cruel prank. I suspect that someone received a genuine letter at some time and has copied it and typed out a new one. A bit laborious, but they were obviously determined. There is no letter heading, you see - here: they've merely typed the address of the school."

"Oh."

"You have no idea why they might have done that?"

"No, sir."

He picks up a paper knife from a pot on the desk and slits open the second envelope. I sit there, quietly. I can hear a clock ticking in the classroom outside.

The voice in my head says "everything is leaving you behind - even time."

He looks at me. "Well, we may as well discuss the contents of this second letter, assuming that they're true. It says here that you have problems controlling your "waterworks" as it so quaintly puts it, and that therefore it is not appropriate for you to go on long coach journeys. Is this true?"

"Please, sir. Yes, sir."

"Your father has gone away. Is that true?"

"Yes, sir."

"It says that this problem only arose at that time - when your father went away. Is that true?"

"Yes, sir."

"I see."

He suddenly bursts into a series of coughs and he pulls out a handkerchief and he does what my mum calls "splutters" into it.

"I see. Well now, tell me about your problem. Is there anything anybody at the school can do about it?

"I can't really explain, sir. It just - started happening."

"I see. And who has been informed?"

"Nobody at the school, sir. And - and please, sir - I don't really see what good coming here does either. I can see about not going on the outing but I can't see why I've got to come here."

"Neither can I. Unless…"

He stands there, and it's like he's frozen into a statue, with a puzzled expression on its face.

"Sorry, sir. You said 'Unless'…"

"No matter. Tell me, have you seen a doctor about - your problem?"

"No, sir. My mum doesn't think there's any point. I'm not ill, she says."

"I see. And has anybody at the school seen you? The nurse, for instance?"

"No, sir. In fact…"

This time I feel myself freezing into stone.

"In fact?"

"I didn't think anyone at the school knew about it. I haven't had an accident here or anything."

***

I left the consulting room, walked through the waiting room and rushed to the toilet. Everything burned as I pissed into the pan. I coughed up some phlegm and spat it out. It splashed down through the line of urine and splayed it out into shivering yellowing fingers and then lay there like scum on a tide in the country of the ill, to quote the poet. I washed my hands, went out to the reception desk, made a further appointment and moved away. I looked no better reflected in her spectacles than I had done when I had come in. When I moved through the archway, I started to sing. Singing that I woke up this morning seemed too much like a blues cliché, so I did just that.
***
He reaches for some glue from the desk, seals the envelope again, and hands it back to me.

"Please, sir…"

"Yes, go on."

"Sir, I don't understand."

"What?"

"Sir, so you weren't here waiting for me to report to you."

"No – no, certainly not. I had no idea you were coming. I am here to do some work."

"So, if you hadn't been here, sir…"

"The place would have been locked."

"And I would have gone home."

"Yes. So, I wonder why they sent you here. It seems a pretty pointless prank, unless the people who did it knew that I was going to be here. Which would narrow it down somewhat. However, I have been coming in here on every Saturday for - I suppose that it must be for the last two months now. So word may have got around."

"Please, sir, why are you here on Saturdays?"

"I have some catching up to do: I have – got a little behind in my work. Things happened that delayed me. I have homework to mark, lessons to prepare."

"Please, sir, why do you wear a gown if it's Saturday and there's nobody else here?"

"You're very inquisitive, young man."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"No, don't be: it's all right. I - I wear the gown because it helps me get into the right frame of mind to do the work. There have been - certain problems - but this helps me to concentrate. And I'm getting there." He pauses and then stands up quickly. "Anyway, I am afraid that I have to go to the lavatory again. I have a key to the outside door, the classroom and this study, but nowhere else, so I cannot use the staff facilities. So, I am afraid that, for security reasons, you will have to go back outside and wait for me. Unless you need to go yourself, of course."

I do need to go. All of a sudden I'm desperate.

We walk out of the headmaster's study. He locks the door behind him. We walk across the classroom. The clock is still ticking. We walk through the door and he locks that one too. We walk through the open outside door and up the slope towards the toilets.

The voice in my head says "This is when the future starts."

***

I got as far as the corner of the fence and hedge at the far end of the car park but no further. I knelt over and vomited under the hedge.

The voice twisting in again. Not leaving me alone. "Well, Leonard, going down the tubes together, you and I."

When I looked up, the family had come out again. The little girl jumped up and down. The man looked at me strangely before helping the old lady into the car and shooing the girl onto the back seat. They drove away.

***

We walk into the toilet block and go up to the trough. He unbuttons himself and starts. I wait because I'm not sure what to do and then I unbutton myself and start as well. He finishes. He seems to shake something. He buttons himself up. He is close to me. I can smell stale tobacco and that is a now smell. I haven't finished yet. He starts singing again, and I still don't know what the tune is. I start to cry. He reaches over and hugs me. I still haven't finished. I start singing myself, because I don't know what else to do. I sing my mum's favourite tune. I can feel shadows but I don't turn around.

I hear voices. "Well now, what have we here?"

And now people move in. Adults. I don't know these people.

***

But that was then, and that was then as well. And now here we are. It's all done now. All past tense. The white sheets are like the starched skin of some dead albino animal. I stand up and let them clatter to the floor. It is time to move on. I can see the door in front of me. I touch the roughness of the brickwork around the arch. My mouth is closed and dry. I can hear my own voice singing from the other side. I can hear no other voices. I open the door. I walk through the wide doorway.